Category Archives: Notes from Dr. Dan-o

Post navigation

As we celebrate one of the most festive times of the year, we might also have some down time to “feed our head” (i.e., nuggets!). So I thought I should offer up some nugget recommendations for the winter break just in case you get some “me time.” In addition to books (we all know I love books), I have some smaller “bite size” recommendations beyond books (i.e., Netflix, podcasts, articles, and videos). Beyond the items listed below, one could also go back to see my book recommendations from 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016. If you have a more particular interest, drop me an email and we can go deeper into a specific topic.

To start off with, I wanted to make some recommendations to the students who just wrapped my Professional Selling course. Specifically:

Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth

Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen

Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade by Robert Cialdini

Grit is the ultimate “new-school” professional selling book and is one of my top recommendations of all recommendations from the last 5 years. Thanks for the Feedback is masterpiece discussing verbal & non-verbal presentation skills. We talked A LOT about persuasion this semester and of course Cialdini was a central part of the conversation and this is his latest book.

Next up, is a set of book recommendations I picked for myself and I cannot wait to read:

Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction by Derek Thompson

Blockbusters: Hit Making, Risk-Taking and The Big Business of Entertainment by Anita Elberse

The Brain is a storytelling book and storytelling is a research topic that is near and dear to my heart. Also note, there is a DVD set of this book with the same title since it was 6-part PBS series. Presence is part persuasion and part motivation book. I’ve heard Amy Cuddy on at least a dozen different podcasts and if you do not have time to read the book, Professor Cuddy has one of the top 20 TED talks of all time. Recently, I heard Larry Robertson talk about The Language of Man on a podcast and I was impressed with the content. In sum, this is a creativity book! In my mind, both Hit Makers and Blockbusters explore a similar question – what is interesting? Its not east to “get outside the box” and both of these books talks specifically to how to be different in a crowded marketplace.

Perhaps you do not have enough time for a book over the break but you’re still looking for some nuggets?

Netflix Documentaries

Banking on Bitcoin

The Secret Rules of Modern Living: Algorithms

Lo and Behold: The History of the Internet

Podcast Recommendations

How I Built This with Guy Roz

Master of Scale with Reid Hoffman

HBR IdeaCast

Hidden Brain with Shankar Vedantam

Finally, I would like to speak directly to the students in my Spring 2018 Digital Marketing class. Here are a few recommendations specifically for you:

In the fall of 2003, my Department Chair asked me to create “some kind of e-marketing course” because all the students were talking about the Internet so I happily did for the Spring 2004 semester. Even though the syllabus had some sort of official business school title (the title as changed multiple times since 2004), I call this experience the “Dr. Dan-o Course” as it was entirely dreamed up inside of my head.

I love this course and I’ve taught it at least once per year since I created it. Each time, I take a deep dive into the cutting edge and make changes, adding new articles and topic areas. This year, 25% of the articles are new (click this link Dr. Dan-o Class) to check out the revised reading list. For those of you who not have this experience, I’m sure there will be at least a dozen or so articles on this syllabus that you will love.

As a professor, nothing makes a teacher happier than to see your students do well. (Thanks LinkedIn for all those career updates). I have been very fortunate to have numerous standout students over the years, especially during my time at the Stillman School of Business at Seton Hall University. Former student Brad Childs was the first Stillman School of Business valedictorian during my SHU tenure and I was hoping Stillman would have another.

I am happy to say lightening as struck again as Noel Girgenti was the valedictorian to the Seton Hall class of 2016. I had the pleasure to be one of Noel’s 38 plus professors (Noel was in two of my classes and is now a Stillman MBA Student) during her time at Seton Hall. I was so impressed listening in the audience as Noel touched on themes such as passion – servant leadership – humility – selflessness and most interesting – home – as Seton Hall is part of her community – her home. Well-done Noel…well done…

But don’t take my word for it, as it is best for Noel to speak for herself. Noel, the floor is yours…

Good morning, Archbishop Myers, Members of the Board of Trustees, Members of the Board of Regents, Provost Robinson, deans, faculty, staff, clergy, family, friends, and our Class of 2016! Today we look back, but tomorrow we move on. We reflect on who we were and look forward to who we will be. We remember our times strolling through campus – vigilantly avoiding contact with the seal so that our famous superstition did not keep us from graduating, seeing the Green filled with our friends on the first beautiful day after a long winter, and rubbing the Pirate’s foot in front of the Rec Center to hopefully receive some good luck before midterms and finals started. Walking through campus now, the very sight of the buildings burst with memories that bond us to Seton Hall. In these places, we cried away our troubles, we laughed until we cried, we converted strangers to lifelong friends, we learned the meaning of adulthood, and we experienced the most impactful moments of our lives here. Above all, we became pirates!

However, this begs the question: what exactly does being a pirate truly mean at this special place? Is it the never-ending pursuit for glory and riches? Or is it the insatiable passion to serve others with humility and selflessness? Seton Hall embodies this passion, thus forever changing our definition of the word because of our community… because of our home.

When we first embarked on our journey 4 years ago, there was insurmountable pressure to know our destiny. None of us knew if we would graduate a better person than the high school versions of ourselves, as it was virtually impossible to predict exactly who would be sitting in these chairs today. Arriving at Pirate Adventure before Freshman year even began, this stimulated our hunger to grow and change even as fear crept up inside. That fear has now transformed. Whenever we travel back to campus after long weekends or breaks, we now mention, without a second thought, that we are going home to the Hall. We say the word home because we became a family comprised of different backgrounds and different places. We all share the same heart, mind, and spirit that no other individual outside of Seton Hall can relate.

Like many of you, with the anticipation of a college and a rigorous curriculum, many questions raced through my mind. What did I actually want to be when I grew up? How could I pick only one discipline to excel in for the rest of my life? Would I need to compromise who I was to make a living? In the humble words of St. Teresa of Avila, “To have courage for whatever comes in life – everything lies in that.” We mustered up this courage and, with guidance, we capitalized on our strengths and found our passions. Our University cultivated our uniqueness, encouraged us to be well rounded, and taught us values that transcend all professions. These same values are exemplified by our professors, peers, faculty, and staff every day. Through their mentorship, we learned how to transform the concept of valuing the individual and serving others through our leadership into practice.

Our education challenged our way of thinking. Our social experiences allowed us to show compassion and sacrifice for others who we just met (although, sometimes those relationships were the ones that grew most in our hearts). Our community informed us how to remain hopeful and faithful to our aspirations and beliefs, while remaining steadfast in our ethics and morals. Whether we are graduating from the College of Arts & Sciences, College of Communication and the Arts, School of Diplomacy and International Relations, College of Education and Human Services, College of Nursing, Stillman School of Business, School of Health and Medical Sciences, or the Seminary School of Theology, our coming of age here allowed us to realize that the “real world” is a place filled with opportunity for kindness and greatness and not as a dreaded dead-end once 9-to-5 becomes a reality.

So, I’m assuming that we’re all here today because we didn’t walk across the seal, right? Well, now we can walk across with confidence and recognize that we earned the right to call ourselves pirates. Every time you notice a Seton Hall sweatshirt or a bumper sticker or our men’s and women’s basketball teams on TV, you know that your community spans far greater than these gates and far greater than the state of New Jersey. You are a part of Seton Hall, where you learned how to flourish and embrace who you are today. And that person is exactly who you were meant to be, a person who yearns for and who will inevitably achieve greatness.

By the end of the day, we become full-time representatives of this University. We are Seton Hall. We are a product of these 4 years and all the lives that have touched us. We carry a part of this institution with us forever. Let us always remember what being a pirate truly means.

It’s been a blitz of a year outside of DigNuggetville as I started a number of new things – yet, the blog is still humming along. In the past 4 years, DigNuggetville hit:

-302 posts

-59,715 sessions

-48,764 unique visitors

-69,158 page views

Not bad…it’s a start. Perhaps some day I can do those numbers in a year (well maybe not the “posts” number) but I’m happy nonetheless.

As for those “new things” from the past year, one of the most interesting is co-hosting a podcast titled:

The David Diehl Show – Sports, Tech, and a Bunch of Other Stuff with Co-Host Dr. Dan-o – – presented by Today’s Business

The host David Diehl (2-time Super Bowl winner for the New York Football Giants) handles the sports questions and I do the tech questions.

The AskDDShow is a lot of fun (YouTube channel) and has an active community on Twitter and Instragram – send David and I your sports and tech questions @AskDDshow! Episode #3 will be released today.

Finally, as I did with previous Birthday posts, I’m re-posting the “Inaugural Post” below outlining the mission and goals for DigNuggetville. This serves as a reminder so I stay on course for the upcoming year.

I hope the summer has been treating us well. For some time now, I have been cooking up the idea for – dignuggetville.com – so WELCOME to the inaugural post.

The number one mission of this blog is to disseminate, distribute, broadcast, circulate, etc., nuggets. As you recall, nuggets are takeaways – a kernel of information you would like to stow away for future use.

Now in class, I made you record things in your journal (and yes I know a few of you out there still keep your journal alive). Either way, I want to continue our conversation and share more nuggets.

The recording of nuggets is strongly rooted in learning theory and is the foundation of my teaching philosophy. Broadly speaking, the main thrust of our discussion will involve (but not limited to) my main areas of interest:

Marketing Strategy

Marketing Research

Servant Leadership

Web 2.0/Social Media

Personal Selling and Sales Management

Consumer Behavior

Books/Business Media Recommendation

Networking (e.g., the old fashion face-to-face kind, as well as, the newer social media kind)

Most importantly, I would like to hear from you. If you are having a problem at work or want to talk through a career related decision, these are things I help out former students colleagues with on a weekly basis. In summary, if there is something you would like to ask, please post a question.

As we party into the holidays and wrap up 2014, it is time to end the longest hiatus in the 3-year history of DigNuggetville. To be direct, a mantra that consistently echoes between my ears is BIG ROCKS FIRST. In August 2014, I became the Director of the MBA Program in the Stillman School of Business at Seton Hall University while at the same time, taught overload for the fall semester. I had many BIG Rocks to take care of and DigNuggetville had to take a back seat for a short time.

It didn’t help that I had big DigNugggetville plans for the fall. The last post was #295 and in my head, I had a number of special posts leading up to milestone post #300. I didn’t have the time for the special posts, and I didn’t change my mind that posts #296 – #300 could be normal Dr. Dan-o nuggets, so I had to be patient, take care of my BIG Rocks first and plan forward.

Now that hiatus is over, I’m going to get those special posts rolling and make the announcement at post #300. In the meantime, I am always finding interesting nuggets so enjoy the following links while I get writing.

Three years ago today, DigNuggetville was launched and keeping with tradition, I’m reposting the “Inaugural Post” outlining the mission and goals for DigNuggetville. Except for the auto industry comment, the blog has been true to the mission outlined below.

As I have been hinting to in recent posts, Year 3 of DigNuggetville will feature something totally new – something I have been brewing up for the past 3 months or so. I look forward to its debut in the very near future.

I hope the summer has been treating us well. For some time now, I have been cooking up the idea for – DigNuggetville – so WELCOME to the inaugural post.

The number one mission of this blog is to disseminate, distribute, broadcast, circulate, etc., nuggets. As you recall, nuggets are takeaways – a kernel of information you would like to stow away for future use.

Now in class, I made you record things in your journal (and yes I know a few of you out there still keep your journal alive). Either way, I want to continue our conversation and share more nuggets.

The recording of nuggets is strongly rooted in learning theory and is the foundation of my teaching philosophy. Broadly speaking, the main thrust of our discussion will involve (but not limited to) my main areas of interest:

Marketing Strategy

Marketing Research

Servant Leadership

Web 2.0/Social Media

Personal Selling and Sales Management

Consumer Behavior

Books/Business Media Recommendation

Networking (e.g., the old fashion face-to-face kind, as well as, the newer social media kind)

Most importantly, I would like to hear from you. If you are having a problem at work or want to talk through a career related decision, these are things I help out former students colleagues with on a weekly basis. In summary, if there is something you would like to ask, please post a question.

Earlier this summer, I posted a number of excellent books for the 2014 Summer Book Recommendation Reading List. We all need a new nugget or two to expand our knowledge base and a good book is an excellent way to accomplish that goal. Here’s what I’ve read so far:

–The Humor Code by Peter McGraw: Excellent – I’ve always been interested in how humor can make someone more likable

–Social Media Explained by Mark W. Schaefer: Perfect for my fall social media class – I now have some more nuggets to pass along

–The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande: Different – not what I was expecting – sort of like a giant New Yorker article meaning great storytelling and less theory (although the theory is there in the reference list). In sum, the more complicated something is, the more you need a checklist so you don’t miss something

–Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products by Leander Kahney: This is a must read for any Apple/tech industry watcher. Design (e.g., how something works and NOT how something looks) is embedded into the culture of Apple and I feel is one of the main key distinctions between Apple and everyone else

Here is what I’ll be reading next:

–The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone: I am leading a discussion this fall at Seton Hall on Amazon and there is not a more complete book out there on the Amazon mindset

–The No Asshole Rule, by Robert Sutton – an interesting leadership book: My wife read this while I was reading The Checklist Manifesto and I’m working on a salesforce study that I’m sure this book would be helpful

Learning is like one giant puzzle: each learning opportunity adds another puzzle piece to our brain and we constantly build this learning mosaic throughout our lives. We can learn in class, on the job, at conferences, through mentors, via podcasts and perhaps a 1,000 other ways but we learn and we use those takeaways (I like to call them nuggets) to create our knowledge base. One of my favorite learning tools are books are we all should read one excellent book this summer: Welcome to the 2014 Summer Book Recommendation Reading List!

Last summer, I posted a number of excellent books including many of my classic recommendations but the list below is mostly new. The recommendations are in no particular order and you can go to Amazon to find further detail on these titles. If there is a more particular interest, drop me an email and I’ll go deeper into a more specific topic OK.

ENJOY!

Dr. Dan-o

What I am reading now:

–The Humor Code by Peter McGraw – I’m 75% though this one and it’s been excellent. I’m particular interested in how humor makes someone more likeable and so far, Professor McGraw has sparked a number of ideas for me to investigate.

What I will be reading next:

–Social Media Explained by Mark W. Schaefer – I often get invited to do “social media 101” talks and I have a number of tools to help me with this objective but I am always looking for more nuggets. I’ve read a previous Mark book – The Tao of Twitter – and I have never missed an episode of Mark’s excellent podcast The Marketing Companion.

More excellent books on my summer reading list:

–Cultural Strategy by Doug Holt

–Chief Culture Officer by Grant McCracken

For those of you who have had the Dr. Dan-o Social Media/1-to-1/Direct Marketing class where we read dozens of Harvard Business Review articles, these books are for you. If you like branding – these books are for you. If you feel the consumer or the crowd creates brand meaning and NOT the marketing or brand manger – these books are for you.

I love the tech industry and Apple is always top of mind:

–Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution by Fred Vogelstein

In a follow up to yesterday’s post, Scott Glovier of Valassis, who visited my Professional Selling class, said many other nuggetworthy thoughts and the comment below I had to share.

In his role at Valassis, Scott conducts a lot of interviews, especially with sales positions. In one of his slides, Scott mentioned there are a number of qualities he looks for in a candidate. He thinks of these qualities not as an absolute score, but rather on continuum (one of my favorite words) and through a series of questions, “scores” each candidate. Here are those excellent eleven qualities:

I have a passion for being in the classroom. At the start of the semester, usually within the first 10 minutes of the first class session, I say: “Yes, we will earn a grade in this class and we will fulfill an important requirement of some sort, however, one of my main goals for the semester is to prepare you for life after college.”

That’s not an easy goal and there is no one-way to tackle it but I do a variety of things during the semester to accomplish this very important task. One, for instance, is to bring the “real world” into the class with guest speakers. One of my most recent speakers was Scott Glovier of Valassis, who visited my Professional Selling class. Scott is an excellent mentor and has partnered with Seton Hall and the Network for Executive Women to build a mentorship program with some of the sharpest female marketing majors in the Stillman School of Business.

We talked about a variety of topics during Scott’s visit. One topic that students kept circling back to was tips for interviewing, which happens to be an excellent topic for Scott as he has lots of experience interviewing salespeople. In his response, Scott recommended the following questions to ask during an interview:

-What are your most profitable products/services? And why?

-How would you describe the firm’s culture?

-What types of recognition programs do you have?

-What are some of the firm’s biggest challenges?

-What are some of the key traits or characteristics of the top people?

-What do you like the most about this firm?

-How do I fit into the puzzle here at the firm?

Thanks for the wisdom Scott! These are all excellent questions to think about on your next job interview.